Sharon Hodgson: It is the second time this year that I have risen to welcome an intervention from the Deputy Prime Minister. First, I welcomed his intervention on child care ratios, and now I welcome his support of Labour’s position on teacher training. I admit that I have a newfound appreciation of him. Alas, it may not last. Of course, that means the poor Schools Minister is in the unenviable position of defending the policy, but he will be unable to defend it without being on the wrong side of his party leader—I think I have that the right way around.
	Even more baffling than the political acrobatics being performed by the Lib Dems is the fact that, in 2013, we are having a debate in Parliament about whether we want the people who teach our children to be trained to do so. Anyone who last week watched the last episode of “Educating Yorkshire” will, after drying their eyes as I did, have been left in little doubt about the value of a great teacher, particularly when it comes to getting the best out of the children who face the greatest barriers to learning. Seeing Mr Burton try everything he could to unlock the ability of Musharaf Asghar to complete his English language oral exam—he eventually succeeded—was inspirational. Mr Burton was able to do that not because he knows a lot about poetry, although I am sure he does, but because he knows a lot about pedagogy. That is the thing about the best teachers: they know how to teach the class in front of them—every individual child or young person, with the myriad challenges they each face—rather than just the subject matter.
	The Secretary of State is undoubtedly a man of great accomplishment with an impressive academic record but, with respect, I would not want him teaching my children. That is nothing personal. If a Nobel prize winner cannot manage behaviour in a class, and if they cannot tailor their teaching to the strengths and weaknesses of each person in their class, their presence is little better than giving a child a textbook and telling them to go away and read it. Schools are not universities, and teachers are not lecturers. Schools and schoolteachers must be there for every child, not just for the most academically gifted or self-motivated.
	I have always thought that teachers perhaps do not get enough training on supporting the one in five children who have special educational needs, either through their initial qualification or their continuous professional development. For the Education Secretary to argue that someone who has had no training is a suitable person to unlock learning for those children is therefore incomprehensible to me.